Here - TwoMorrows

The Magazine for LEGO ® Enthusiasts of All Ages!
Issue 22 • January 2013
$
8.95
in the US
Taking to the Skies
Sky-FI Building
with Cole Martin
and Jon Hall
NASA’s
Curiosity
Rover Instructions
The Batcave
Celebrating
50 Years of LEGO
in Norway
and MORE!
1 1
0 74470 23979 6

Issue 22 • January 2013
Contents
From the Editor...................................................2
People
Are J. Heiseldal......................................................3
To the Batcave!.....................................................8
BrickStix®: A Timeline..................................18
Celebrating 50 Years of LEGO®
in Norway...........................................................20
Building The Norwegian
Royal Palace......................................................22
Building Snowy Mountain......................24
NASA AFOL!........................................................26
You Can Build It:
Curiosity Rover...............................................28
Building
You Can Build It:
T-16 Skyhopper..............................................37
Minifigure Customization 101:
Fun With a Vacuum!..................................40
Century Fighters..............................................44
Community
Sky-Fi: Building in the Aerial
Universe of Crimson Skies® and
Dieselpunk.......................................................49
Cole Martin: Sky-Flyer!.................................56
You Can Build It:
Modular Pirate Interceptor..................60
Jon Hall: LEGO Aviator!................................67
The LEGO Group Takes to the Air!......73
From the Designer’s Desk........................76
Community Ads..............................................78
Last Word..............................................................79
AFOLs......................................................................80
1

People
Are J. Heiseldal:
the LEGO Builder
Behind the Brick!
Article by: Megan Rothrock
Photography by: Are J. Heiseldal
You might have seen his cool car MOCs on flickr, where he is known as L@go; and though
he may be new on the AFOL LEGO Event scene, this talented builder is full of surprises.
BrickJournal: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and
where you come from?
Are J. Heiseldal: I’m 35 years old and come from the
southernmost part of Norway. Currently I live in Bergen
on the Western coast, where I work as a sports reporter for
Norwegian TV 2. My main interests, apart from building,
are music and cars, particularly Italian ones. I currently
own my fifth one, a typically unreliable but utterly gorgeous
Alfa Romeo.
BrickJournal: What MOCs or themes do you like to build?
Are: I’m a town builder, and my main focus is cars, which
comes quite natural to me since I’ve been a huge car nut since
I was a kid. At the moment I’m very much into hot rods and
vintage cars. My main rule is that the cars I build must fit
in, scale-wise, with LEGO’s current offerings, and that they
must be able to seat a minifig. A special pet project of mine
is updating old sets that I grew up with, to modern LEGO
standard, and some of those have turned out very well.
In addition to that I’ve built a few modulars, and I enjoy
that, but they’re so parts exhaustive – especially because I
just can’t seem to be able to build buildings without interiors.
It’s an expensive mental block… but the interiors are
also my favorite parts of my modular buildings.
Are describes his car: “My lovely ‘00 Alfa 156 2.5 V6. Not the most reliable
of cars, but it’s beautiful and sounds like nothing else.”
BrickJournal: How often do you build?
Are: It depends on how much spare time I’ve got on my
hands. Lately I’ve been building more than usual. But as
I don’t have a huge collection of bricks I design all my
MOCs digitally first, using MLCad, before ordering the
bricks I need. That’s another expensive habit that I need to
get rid of sooner or later – I’m working on expanding my
parts collection!
Are says, “My minifig-scale version of
the classic Model Team set #5541. The
proportions are a bit off, because I wanted it
to have eight cylinders, and that meant the
engine needed to be four studs long. But I
think it works as an interpretation.”
3

Mail Truck (1982)
BrickJournal: When did you come out of your ‘Dark
Ages?’ Was there a particular LEGO set that inspired
you to get building as an adult?
Are: Yes. In 2008 I discovered the Café Corner and
instantly fell in love. The timing was perfect, because
it hadn’t yet been discontinued, so I was able to get it
at close to retail price – and got hooked. Next I got the
Market Street and the Green Grocer… and after that it
all went a bit crazy. I’m much more focused now. I’ll
keep collecting the modulars, because they’re like the
ultimate evolution of the classic Town sets that I grew
up with – although the Statue of Liberty is probably the
set I’m most happy with owning. It sits proudly on a
pedestal in my living room.
Stock Car (1986)
Are’s pet project: updating the old classic sets to the modern LEGO City
style. He strives to keep as many of the details as possible. All are decorated
with original LEGO stickers, some of them 30 years old.
Highway
Maintenance Truck
(1982)
4

Building
To the Batcave!
Article and Photography
by Carlyle Livingston II
Hi! I’m Carlyle Livingston.
LEGO building can be, and often is, a solitary endeavor.
Building the Batcave with Wayne Hussey has shown both of
us what can be achieved if you work together towards one
goal. We discovered that by combining our knowledge and
talents we were able to create a Batcave that is far better than
either of us would have accomplished on our own.
Design
We had been kicking around the idea of starting a project
together for some time, so when we found out that SEALUG
had the opportunity of putting a LEGO display at Emerald
City Comicon (ECCC), we began discussing what we would
like to build. Wayne suggested a Batcave and I quickly agreed.
The first thing we did was discuss what would be in this
Batcave. Well, you must have the Batmobile, of course, and
a Control Room is certainly needed, and a Batplane seemed
like a good idea. So Wayne built a mock-up of our
Batcave with LEGO in a microscale size.
8
Above: Carlyle (left) and Wayne Hussey (right), the creators of the Batcave.
Below: Wayne’s scale maquette of the Batcave.
When you look at that quick and simple maquette that Wayne
threw together, it’s interesting to see how close we stayed to
the original vision overall, yet how the additions we made
along the way added so much to the final result. We wanted
to create our own interpretation of the Batcave, so we drew
our inspiration from elements of the different movie and TV
versions we both liked best.

Building a Cave
Now that the vehicles were ready, we commenced the actual
construction of the cave itself. Our first concern was the overall
dimensions of the cave and how it related to the size and
placement of the vehicles. We came up with a size by setting
up the vehicles in their rough relationship to each other on
a table. It was important to make sure the vehicles wouldn’t
be too close to each other, and conversely there couldn’t be
any ‘dead spaces’ where you would say to yourself “Hey!
Shouldn’t there be something right there?!”
Building in progress. Note the cave section edges.
Rock!
Now we get to two things that had to be worked out jointly
from the start, and continually manipulated as we went,
and that is the rock surface of the cave and the structure that
supports it.
LEGO is a great thing for easily making shapes like houses,
but when you try to make shapes found in nature, it takes
a little more thought about how to pull that off so it looks
convincingly like what you see in real life . In our case it was
rock. My challenge, which I was excited to try, was to make the
rock look like rock, not just a bunch of LEGO slapped down in
an attempt at randomness. And that’s the key, in my opinion:
randomness. When you look at rock, with few exceptions,
there are not repeating patterns. It’s very easy to have patterns
with LEGO. Randomness requires special effort. As I placed
each piece, I made sure that the area surrounding it had no
parts moving in the same direction in a way that would cause
a pattern to emerge. Patterns were my enemy!
As I was doing that task I also had to consider how to keep
it all structurally sound. This is where Wayne comes in.
His many years of experience helped me see ways to make
structure that was strong, lightweight and used as few bricks
as possible to achieve both of those goals. He designed how
the exterior walls of our cave attached to the interior rock
walls. He also created simple ways to have openings in the
exterior walls which would allow for access after they enclosed
the rock.
An early phase of building.
The next major consideration was transportation. Not only
did we ask ourselves, “Can we carry it easily,” but will it even
fit through the door? Carlyle slaps forehead! This is easy to
overlook when starting a large project. We decided that it
would be best to split the cave into three major sections that
would slide apart for disassembly. Wayne did his usual magic
and came up with a way to have registration pins made from
axles where the sections meet, so they would stay together
when on display.
A closer look at the rock detail work done for the cave.
10

People
Celebrating
50 years of LEGO®
in Norway:
“Bli med å bygge
landet”
(Build a Piece
of Norway!)
Article by: Megan Rothrock
and Are J. Heiseldal
Photography by: Are J. Heiseldal
and Bjørn Håvar Falck-Andersen
Strong enough to hold a train; this mountain bridge was built by Bård Nome.
A completed map of Norway in LEGO bricks!
Photo provided by Matija Pužar.
This past November Megan Rothrock had the
opportunity to travel to Oslo, Norway to attend
a special LEGO event: “Bli med å bygge landet”-
in English, “build a piece of Norway.” LEGO
celebrated 50 years in Norway inviting visitors to
come to the Telenor Arena, which they filled with
five million LEGO bricks! For this journalist and
LEGO event veteran, this was a very different style
of LEGO event to attend. Never before had there
been so many loose LEGO bricks to build with,
encouraging the visitors to build up a model and
place it into a massive map or Norway!
Strong enough to hold a train; this mountain bridge was built by: Bård Nome
20

TV 2 Norway interviews Morten Dalermoen
with their own custom built LEGO microphone.
Members of Brikkelauget eagerly awaiting the
National News broadcast of the event on TV.
A giant rendition of the Øresund Bridge (which connects Denmark and Sweden) by LEGO Certified Professional
Matija Pužar. Train on bridge built by Bjørn-Erik Gunnerød.
Train station built by Bjørn Einar Storsveen.
Morten dives into a ‘pool’ of LEGO bricks!
25

People
NASA
AFOL!
Article and Photography
by Stephen Pakbaz
2012 will be known to
space fans as the year
that Curiosity landed on
Mars. One of those fans
is Stephen Pakbaz, who
lives in Virginia and is a
member of WAMALUG
(the Washington and
Metro Area LEGO
Users Group, based in
Washington, DC). Not
only has he built spacethemed
models, he also is
a designer for a NASA
contractor!
Here, Stephen talks about
the models he has built and
the work he does with his
LEGO building.
26
Curiosity and its skycrane,
built by Stephen and
displayed at Brickfair 2012.
The first NASA models I built were not my own design, but from the LEGO
Discovery theme. It was released in 2003 and consisted of six sets: a Space
Shuttle (7470), Apollo spacecraft (7468, 10029), Mars rovers (7471, 7469), and the
International Space Station (7467). Before then, the space models I made were from
the realm of science fiction, my own research into interplanetary space travel, and
my imagination. The first NASA LEGO creation that I designed myself was the
Curiosity rover, early in 2011. At the same time, I was a Mechanical Engineer at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where I helped perform tests and design parts for
the real Curiosity rover. I used my firsthand experience with the real rover to make
the model as accurate as possible. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, birthplace of robotic
space exploration, was a treasure trove of useful information. Models and displays
fill the hallways and entrances to most buildings. Also on the laboratory premises is
a fantastic museum and library, which I visited often. I made use of these resources
to create other models such as minifig scale versions of the previous Mars rovers
and the Voyager 2 spacecraft, with inspiration left over for many more models
in the future. I am currently a Senior Mechanical Designer at the Orbital Sciences
Corporation, which specializes in developing commercial and exploration spacecraft,
launch vehicles, and other projects in cooperation with NASA. My recent Pegasus
rocket and Cygnus spacecraft LEGO models have reflected this change and the recent
overall increase in commercial space development.
The Curiosity rover was the first spacecraft I ever worked on, and I was very
enthusiastic about discussing it with friends and family. While I was very familiar
with this robotic vehicle, most others were not, considering it hadn’t even launched
yet. It was sometimes difficult to describe the rover and how it worked without
images or models, especially parts like the mechanically marvelous rocker-bogie
suspension system that the rover uses to navigate over obstacles and uneven terrain.

You Can Build It
MINI Model
Curiosity Rover
Design and Instructions
by Stephen Pakbaz
With the landing of Curiosity, it only seemed fitting to have a
model of the rover in BrickJournal. We are fortunate to have the
model designed by the same person that designed the LEGO
CUUSOO version.
This version is a minifigure scale model of the rover, and has
many of the details of the larger CUUSOO version. The model
has an accurate rendition of the suspension and instrument
arms, and can be rolled around to show its suspension.
Many thanks to Stephen Pakbaz for the model design and
digital model!
Parts List (Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by
searching by part number and color)
Qty Color Part Description
1 White 30374.dat Bar 4L Light Sabre Blade
1 White 4070.dat Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight
2 Light Bluish Gray 4070.dat Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight
1 Light Bluish Gray 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2
2 Light Bluish Gray 60470.dat Plate 1 x 2
with 2 Clips Horizontal
2 Light Bluish Gray 48336.dat Plate 1 x 2
with Handle Type 2
4 Light Bluish Gray 3710.dat Plate 1 x 4
1 Light Bluish Gray 2420.dat Plate 2 x 2 Corner
2 Trans-Clear 50746.dat Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 2/3
2 Light Bluish Gray 50746.dat Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 2/3
1 White 32123a.dat Technic Bush 1/2 Smooth
with Axle Hole Reduced
2 Red 3069b.dat Tile 1 x 2 with Groove
2 Light Bluish Gray 3068b.dat Tile 2 x 2 with Groove
1 Light Bluish Gray 41770.dat Wing 2 x 4 Left
1 Light Bluish Gray 41769.dat Wing 2 x 4 Right
1 Light Bluish Gray 54384.dat Wing 3 x 6 Left
1 Light Bluish Gray 54383.dat Wing 3 x 6 Right
28

1
1x
2
2x
1x
3
1x
4
1x
1x
5
1x
6
1x
7
1x
8
1x
9
1x
10
1x
11 12
1x
1x
1x
13 14
1x
1x
29

You Can Build It
MINI Model
T-16 Skyhopper
Design and Instructions
by Christopher Deck
Hello everybody and welcome back to our ongoing series
of mini model building in BrickJournal! This issue is about
sky-fighting, which is why we want to build an air vehicle.
This time, it’s the popular T-16 Skyhopper as seen in Star
Wars Episode 4: A New Hope, a small and maneuverable
vehicle of tri-winged design. The mini model’s
construction is more complex than it seems, however.
The main difficulty was to realize the windscreen on each
side of the huge top fin, which divides it into two sections.
A way to achieve this is to use two wedge plates in SNOTalignment
which allows us to attach two 1x1 slopes as
a separate cockpit on each side. The next challenge was
to keep those two wedge plates together as one wing.
Another SNOT-trick with two headlight bricks helps here,
which becomes clear when you will have a closer look at
the instructions. A nice side-effect by using this second
trick is that we have one stud on the underside as well for
the attachment for the laser cannon. The attachment of a
pair of side wings then completes the skyhopper and our
model is finished!
Happy building and see you next time!
Parts List (Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by
searching by part number and color)
Qty Color Part Description
1 White 30374.dat Bar 4L Light Sabre Blade
1 White 4070.dat Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight
2 Light Bluish Gray 4070.dat Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight
1 Light Bluish Gray 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2
2 Light Bluish Gray 60470.dat Plate 1 x 2
with 2 Clips Horizontal
2 Light Bluish Gray 48336.dat Plate 1 x 2
with Handle Type 2
4 Light Bluish Gray 3710.dat Plate 1 x 4
1 Light Bluish Gray 2420.dat Plate 2 x 2 Corner
2 Trans-Clear 50746.dat Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 2/3
2 Light Bluish Gray 50746.dat Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 2/3
1 White 32123a.dat Technic Bush 1/2 Smooth
with Axle Hole Reduced
2 Red 3069b.dat Tile 1 x 2 with Groove
2 Light Bluish Gray 3068b.dat Tile 2 x 2 with Groove
1 Light Bluish Gray 41770.dat Wing 2 x 4 Left
1 Light Bluish Gray 41769.dat Wing 2 x 4 Right
1 Light Bluish Gray 54384.dat Wing 3 x 6 Left
1 Light Bluish Gray 54383.dat Wing 3 x 6 Right
Yours, Christopher Deck
37

Building
Minifig
Customization 101:
Fun With a
Vacuum!
by Jared K. Burks
Figure 2. Plastic Forming Diagram.
Figure 1. Mattel Vac-U-Form.
The kids of the 1960s had it good! Yes, that
statement sounds odd, but think about it for
a second. In the early sixties LEGO came to
America, which is cause enough to celebrate,
but this isn’t the only reason to think these kids
had it good. The Mattel Corporation had a toy
ahead of its time for this hobby: the Mattel Vac-
U-Form. This was a simple vacuum former
that allowed someone to head up a plastic
sheet and then swivel it over on top of a mold
and vacuum out the air with a simple hand
pump, forming a new toy.
Using a vacuum former in the hobby of
LEGO minifigure customizing has long been
something I have wanted to try, but I was
concerned about the level of vacuum pressure
required. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Before we stroll through the uses in minifigure
customizing, let’s roll through the basics of
vacuum forming. Vacuum forming remains a
popular deforming process where the vacuum
removes the air underneath a soft and flexible thermoplastic sheet, creating pressure
to pull the plastic onto a mold. The vacuum forming process starts by raising the
plastic sheet towards a heater to soften the plastic before being pulled down onto the
mold to create a draping form. The aim is always to create a high definition outcome
without any excessive thinning of the plastic taking place. Vacuum forming is used to
make many toy containers as well as several other commercial products.
To be honest with everyone, I am very excited about the content in this article and
I must share the fact that I have not yet tried this technique, but can’t wait to do so.
Because I haven’t tried it, I have reached out to an expert in vacuum forming, Jimmy
“THE BOXMAN” Chavez. Jimmy is relatively new to LEGO customizing, but has
been customizing in Hot Wheels for some time. For info on Jimmy please see his
profile following this article.
For the remainder of the article, I have asked Jimmy to walk us through one of the
cool uses of a vacuum former, beyond the use to create packaging. Clearly packaging
would likely require a larger former than what would be used for creating small
parts.
40

Building
Century Fighters
Article and Photography by Ralph Savelsberg
The F-105 (left) and F-106 (right) showing their swept wings and their area-ruled
fuselages.
44
The LEGO Group has a long-standing policy of not wanting to
make war seem like child’s play. I can completely understand
their point of view, but it has not stopped me from building a
large collection of military aircraft and helicopters using their
products. I am fascinated by the technology that goes into
military aircraft and they are exciting and challenging objects
to build. In this article, I hope to give you some idea what
makes building models of fighter jets interesting and fun, by
explaining how I built two of them: the F-105 Thunderchief
and the F-106 Delta Dart.
Most of my models represent aircraft from the end of the
cold war, but the F-105 and F-106 are of a slightly older
vintage. They entered service with the US Air Force in the
late ‘50s and are part of a range of famous fighter aircraft
known as the Century Fighters, named such because their
numerical designations are in the 100-109 range. Aeronautical
engineering progressed rapidly in the ‘40s and ‘50s. In 1947,
the experimental rocket-powered Bell X-1 was the first aircraft
to fly faster than the speed of sound. Only ten years later,
Century Fighters were routinely flying supersonically, some
even reaching more than twice the speed of sound. These
high speeds required a range of innovations, such as large jet
engines with afterburners and both the F-105 and F-106 were
powered by the J-75 engine, one of the biggest jet engines
available at the time. The high speeds also had an impact
on the shape of the aircraft. Swept wings reduce supersonic
drag, as does making the nose of the aircraft pointy. For low
drag close to speed of sound, the cross-sectional area of the
aircraft ought to change only gradually along its length. A
consequence of this, the so-called area rule, is that the fuselage
has to be narrower where the wings are attached to it, giving it
a shape reminiscent of a Coca-Cola bottle, or perhaps fitting for
the time, of Marilyn Monroe. These external features obviously
have an impact on building the aircraft using LEGO elements.

Building the Thunderchief
F-105s were originally designed to deliver a nuclear weapon,
but instead they went into combat over the jungles of
Southeast Asia, carrying conventional bombs. During the
first few years of the war, they performed the majority of the
USAF’s dangerous bombing missions over North Vietnam,
sustaining heavy losses in the process. Almost half the total
production run was lost, mostly to anti-aircraft artillery.
Enemy MiG-fighters also took their toll, but even though
Thunderchiefs were ill-suited for air-to-air combat, they still
managed to shoot down more than 20 MiGs. The aircraft I
modelled represents one of the ‘MiG-killers’, which survived
the war and in the late Seventies ended up flying with the
Virginia Air National Guard.
I wanted to build an F-105 for years, but for a long time I could
not work out how, for two reasons: the camouflage colors
and the shape of the wings. The easiest way to build a sweptback
wing is by building it perpendicular to the fuselage,
with wedge plates (plates with a diagonal side) used for the
leading and trailing edges. On the F-105 this was not really a
viable option. The sweepback angle for the leading edges of
the wings is almost 45 degrees, which may seem convenient as
there are wedge plates with 45 degree corners. However, the
angle of trailing edge does not match any LEGO wedge plates.
Furthermore, the main legs of the undercarriage fold into the
wings and they are not perpendicular to the fuselage when
retracted. I solved all of this using a bit of mathematics called
a Pythagorean triple. If you make a right-angled triangle with
sides whose lengths are three and four studs long, the diagonal
will be exactly five studs long. The wings on my model
slot into a gap between the upper and lower sections of the
fuselage, and by placing the studs that hold them in place so
that they formed such triangles, I ended up with just about the
45

Community
Sky-Fi:
Building in the
Aerial Universe
of Crimson
Skies ® and
Dieselpunk
Article by Fradel Gonzales
Photography provided by
Fradel Gonzales, Jon Hall,
Theodore Sammis II, Chris
Paton, Chris Giddens, Mark
Sandlin, Gil Shaw, Nick
Kappatos, Adrian Drake,
sydag, Leigh Holcombe,
tbone_tbl, and Fredoichi.
Above: A sky-fi model by Fradel Gonzales.
Beginning a Theme: Influences
Manned flight has captivated the dreams and imaginations of young minds for
countless generations. As children, we watched air shows and were awed by the
aerial stunts, the planes, and the possibilities. It was only natural that the creative
talents of many an AFOL would harness this fascination and combine them to make
exceptional aerial MOCs, especially from the Spacer group of the AFOL community.
By late 2003, builders started creating MOCs inspired from a resurrected board
game from the late ’90s called Crimson Skies. The game was the creation of Jordan
Weisman, the game maker from FASA Corporation that had also brought the
franchise Battletech ® to the gaming world in the mid ’80s. In 2003, the game garnered
a resurgence and following when Microsoft put out an action flight game version of
Crimson Skies for the Xbox and PC gaming systems.
Crimson Skies is an alternate history setting in the 1930s where air pirates, militias,
and corporations vie for control of the skies over a fractured political landscape of the
shattered United Stations in the post-Depression 1937. This game was made famous
not just for the amazing backstory, but also because of the radical aircraft designs.
Examples of these unorthodox designs were flying wings, pusher propeller-driven
aircraft, gyrocopters, and Zeppelin aircraft carriers. Just imagine if the experimental
planes that the United States and Germany had been working on in the ’40s like
the Vought V-173 (Flying Pancake) and the flying wing seen in Raiders of the Lost
Ark had made it into widespread production. The weaponry was also comprised of
experimental technology considered advanced in that era like Tesla cannons, aerial
torpedoes and homing rockets.
Left: Renders of Crimson Skies aircraft.
Top: Devastator.
Bottom:: Kestrel.
49

Tbone_tbl’s rendition of the DuckTales planes,
the Sea Duck (left) and Don Carnage’s plane
(right).
Even before Crimson Skies, there was a
Disney animated series called Tailspin.
This show took characters from the
movie Jungle Book and placed the
characters in a fictional setting in the
South Pacific. It took its cues from yet
another television show, Tales of the Gold
Monkey, about a bush pilot and ex-
Flying Tiger (coincidentally a plot point
shared by Jude Law’s character in Sky
Captain). The plots were very film noir
and incorporated elements like a pilot’s
love for his aircraft, romance, dealing
with bandits and sky pirates, and just
trying to keep their air services afloat.
Both shows also showcased a seaplane
as the protagonist’s sky chariot.
Sydag’s version of the Sea Duck.
Other influences to the genre lay in
Japanese animation. Several anime
movies and television shows gave
examples and inspiration for diesel
punk. Studio Ghibli movies like Kiki’s
Delivery Service and Porco Rosso each
gave examples of interesting flying
designs. Other anime like Last Exile
broke with traditional winged diesel
punk by having wingless flight craft, yet
still maintained the grungy industrial
retro-future look. More examples of
pusher-prop war birds and alternate
history development were from movies
like Sky Crawlers and Royal Wings of
Honneamise.
Sydag’s version of the Savoia S21 plane.
Jon Hall’s model of the Savoia S21 plane
from the film Porco Rosso (above) and
Nausicaä’s “Mehve” Glider (left) from
Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind.
50

Community
Cole Martin:
Sky-Flyer!
Article by Joe Meno
Photography provided by the LEGO Group
Sometimes builders have to be found. This was the case
with Cole Martin, an AFOL who lives in California. I first
met him a couple of years ago at a San Diego LEGO Users
Group (SANDLUG) meeting while I was in town attending
Comic-Con International: San Diego. At that time, Cole was
just starting to build MOCs and already had an eye toward
building hot-rodded vehicles.
I saw him again at a meeting in 2012, and not only had his
building skills jumped, he had found a theme he wanted
to build in. After seeing two of his models, it was apparent
that he had some great MOCs, and so I talked to him about
building Sky-Fi models. Some of those models are highlighted
in this article.
BrickJournal: What do you do now?
Cole Martin: I am currently working in the aerospace industry
as a welder.
BrickJournal: When did you start LEGO building, and when
did you begin building sky-fi models?
Cole: I started building LEGO when I was about 4 years old,
and began sky-fi in 2008.
BrickJournal: What inspires you to build? Who inspires you
to build?
Cole: My first inspiration originally came from a video game
from the X-box game system called Crimson Skies. If I had to
point to one person who has influenced me the most in skyfi
aircraft, it would be Jon Hall18 on Flickr, from
London, England.
56
BrickJournal: How do you build a model? Do you sketch it
out beforehand or just build it?
Cole: When I get an idea for a model, I will usually sketch it
first to get all the details down on paper. Then I like to take
those shapes I have and apply them to the LEGO system.
BrickJournal: How long does it take to build a model?
Cole: Well, it takes me a long time I think compared to most
adult builders because in-between models I take long breaks
of not building anything. This attributes to forgetting things to
where I have this constant re-learning curve going on. It varies
from one week, to two months being the longest.
BrickJournal: What’s the best part of building? What’s the
hardest part of building?
Cole: The best part of building is to me the finished product.
We’re able to transfer our ideas from our minds to the LEGO
medium, and in turn the finished model displays that original
idea. So you can actually see visually what I was thinking.
The hardest part of building to me is the brainstorming and
figuring out the techniques to use to achieve the angles I want.
And this is very difficult at times because of the LEGO itself.
Sometimes they just don’t make the part you want or need, so
you have to compromise.
BrickJournal: What is your favorite model you have built,
and what is your favorite LEGO set?
Cole: My personal favorite is a plane I did that I called Strato
Magnetto. It’s the dark red aircraft shown in this article. My
favorite LEGO set was the recent Space Police set called Smash
’n’ Grab. It made me laugh in the store when I saw it! Real
space criminals, stealing an ATM. Yes! Epic!
BrickJournal: What are you planning to build in the future?
Cole: I am planning on continuing a theme I started a while
back I call Sky Skulls. It consists of dark red, black, and white
aircraft. I am working on and sketching an interceptor aircraft
at the time of this issue. I may do some mercenary planes in
the future as well. We’ll see.

Cole Martin’s Aircraft Brief:
Purple Pirahna
The next four aircraft are example of Cole’s work. He was
gracious enough to take some time to describe each plane for
BrickJournal:
The Purple Piranha is an aircraft fitted with pontoons, or
floats, often referred to as a floatplane, for being specifically
aquatic or water-based. This plane also has what is
considered to be a runway kit which allows it to make
landings on land as well as water. This plane has more to
it than meets the eye, as it has a secret cargo compartment
located in the center of the fuselage (or body) and has a
small compartment located just behind the pilot’s chair as
well. I built this plane using purple because there aren’t as
many parts or elements in LEGO’s color palette molded
in purple. In other words there aren’t as many elements
in purple as red or yellow that most people might have. I
wanted a challenge, and also wanted a color that could be
identified with a female pilot. A female smuggler has to
have a super hot-looking plane! She needed to have a big,
hot-rodded, exposed radial engine too. I think she’ll get
plenty of unwanted attention at the air shows! She is, after
all, a smuggler.
57

You Can Build It
Sky-Fi MINI Model
Modular Pirate
Interceptor
Design by Cole Martin
Instructions by Joe Meno
Parts List (Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by
searching by part number and color)
Qty Color Part Description
2 White 2335p30.dat Flag 2 x 2 with Jolly Roger
Pattern
2 White 2420.dat Plate 2 x 2 Corner
4 Black 2420.dat Plate 2 x 2 Corner
2 Black 2444.dat Plate 2 x 2 with Hole
1 Black 2496.dat Wheel Trolley
2 Black 2540.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Handle
2 Dark Red 3021.dat Plate 2 x 3
1 Black 3021.dat Plate 2 x 3
2 Dark Red 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2
1 Black 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2
4 Black 3024.dat Plate 1 x 1
2 Black 3069b.dat Tile 1 x 2 with Groove
2 Black 3139.dat Tyre 4/80 x 8 Single
Smooth Type 1
2 Light Bluish Gray 3464.dat Wheel Centre with Stub
Axles
2 Dark Red 3623.dat Plate 1 x 3
2 Black 3623.dat Plate 1 x 3
1 Dark Red 3665.dat Slope Brick 45 2 x 1
Inverted
2 White 3665.dat Slope Brick 45 2 x 1
Inverted
1 Black 3666.dat Plate 1 x 6
1 Light Bluish Gray 3673.dat Technic Pin
2 Dark Red 3710.dat Plate 1 x 4
1 Black 3710.dat Plate 1 x 4
3 Black 4081b.dat Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Light
Type 2
2 Black 4150.dat Tile 2 x 2 Round
2 Light Bluish Gray 4274.dat Technic Pin 1/2
1 Black 4617b.dat Propeller 3 Blade 5.5
Diameter with Technic
Peghole
Cole Martin designed this micro sky-fi model and talks
about it: “I wanted to do something small and cool that
kids mostly and adults could have a lot of fun with. I
build mostly minifig scale, and consider myself to be
not as good at building the really small stuff. I leave the
small stuff to folks like my friend Matt Armstrong, a.k.a.
Monsterbrick on Flikr (last seen in BrickJournal #21), and
Fradel Gonsales, a.k.a. slice151 (seen in this issue). But this
particular plane was lots of fun to do and included my signature
design cues you’d find in my bigger models – split
tail, big engine, and reeking of speed and havoc!”
Qty Color Part Description
2 Light Bluish Gray 4697b.dat Technic Pneumatic
T-Piece - Type 2
5 Metallic Silver 6141.dat Plate 1 x 1 Round
2 White 6141.dat Plate 1 x 1 Round
5 Black 6141.dat Plate 1 x 1 Round
1 Black 6541.dat Technic Brick 1 x 1
with Hole
1 Black 30039.dat Tile 1 x 1 with Groove
1 Dark Red 30071.dat Brick 1 x 1
1 Black 30071.dat Brick 1 x 1
1 Metallic Silver 30244.dat Tile 1 x 2 Grille
with Groove
1 Black 30377.dat Minifig Mechanical Arm
2 White 43722.dat Wing 2 x 3 Right
2 White 43723.dat Wing 2 x 3 Left
2 Black 44676.dat Flag 2 x 2 Trapezoid
2 Dark Red 45677.dat Wedge 4 x 4 x 0.667
Curved
1 Black 47905.dat Brick 1 x 1 with Studs
on Two Opposite Sides
1 Black 52107.dat Brick 1 x 2 with Studs
on Sides
9 Black 54200.dat Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 2/3
6 Metallic Silver 59900.dat Cone 1 x 1 with Stop
1 Black 60478.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Handle
on End
1 Black 61409.dat Slope Brick 18 2 x 1
x 2/3 Grille
1 Black 63864.dat Tile 1 x 3 with Groove
2 White 64288.dat Cone 1 x 1 with Stop
2 Black 64644.dat Minifig Telescope
1 Light Bluish Gray 76263.dat Technic Flex-System
Hose 2L (40LDU)
1 Dark Red 85975.dat Minifig Hat Fez
4 Black 85984.dat Slope Brick 31 1 x 2
x 0.667
60

Community
Jon’s newest model, the Blue Angel.
Jon Hall:
LEGO Aviator!
Article by Joe Meno
Photography provided by Jon Hall
One of the most distinctive builders in the LEGO
community is Jon Hall. Primarily a plane builder,
he made a name for himself with his reimagining
of prop-driven airplanes in the style of sky-fi and
dieselpunk. Here, Jon talks to BrickJournal about
how he started building, what inspires him, and
what his building method is. You’ll also find he has
another tie to the LEGO community, so read on!
BrickJournal: How long have you been building?
Jon Hall: I started building when I was a child. I had some of
the classic sets like the Yellow Castle and the early Space sets,
but I only really rediscovered just how much fun it was to build
things once I had my first son and he started playing with my
old LEGO in my parent’s loft. That would be about 6 or 7
years ago.
BrickJournal: Did you have a Dark Age?
Jon: Yes, I probably stopped playing with LEGO when I was
about 13 or 14 and didn’t start again until I was about (ahem) 33.
So quite a long Dark Age.
BrickJournal: What got you into building planes and later
Sky-Fi?
Jon: Two things really. I’ve been a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki’s
work for many years and one of the visual themes that run
though his work is flight. He has imagined many crazy and
beautifully realized flying vehicles. The other reason was a lot
of builders build spaceships (as I soon realized from trawling
the internet for cool models). I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to do
something similarly imaginative, but with planes rather than
spacecraft? Sometimes I even start to design a plane like I would
a spaceship and then tweak it at the last minute so it resembles a
plane more. I find that frees the mind wonderfully!
BrickJournal: How did you come up with the name Sky-Fi?
Jon: I didn’t actually, I wish I had, as it neatly encapsulates this
little sub-genre perfectly! I don’t know who came up with the
name but by the time I started posting on flickr, the word was
already being bandied about.
BrickJournal: You have a lot of models, but which is your
first model?
Jon: My LEGO rendition of the insect-like ornithopters from
Laputa – Castle in the Sky. Well, that’s the first model that I felt
was good enough to share with the world! (http://
www.flickr.com/photos/25163007@N07/2374824789/in/
photostream)
67

Long-Distance Fighter/Interceptor
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW,
CLICK THE LINK TO ORDER THIS
ISSUE IN PRINT OR DIGITAL FORMAT!
The
sorties and stay in the air longer before refuelling than
defence of the Meneres Straits where they earned their
BRICKJOURNAL #22
LEGO PLANE BUILDING! Top builder RALPH SAVELSBERG takes
off with his custom LEGO fighter models, there’s a squadron of
articles on Sky-Fi planes by FRADEL GONZALES and COLE
MARTIN, find instructions to build a Sky-Fi plane, plus our regular
feature on minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, AFOLs
by GREG HYLAND, other step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions,
and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95
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